So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

And life changes. Maybe just a little, maybe a lot. And at some point, it just isn't worth the fight to fix it.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

Sometimes you can't be what you ought to be, you can't have what you ought to have.

In the shaded portions where the two spheres of different lives meet, certain fundamentals- moods, loves, fears, angers- can't be hidden. That's the contract.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block. When I find myself frozen-whether I'm working on a brief passage in a novel or brainstorming about an entire book-it's usually because I'm trying to shoehorn an idea into the passage or story where it has no place.